David died on Sunday 26th of February 2022 after having survived a close shave with a ruptured aorta back in January 2017 which led to open heart surgery as a result of which his driving licence was rescinded. That was a bitter blow for him, making him dependant on lifts from fellow club members which he found very difficult. In return for help with transport he offered a building, fitting out, fault finding and test flying service which was only partly successful and left him feeling very frustrated.
David Joined the WMAC in the late ‘70s, served on the committee from time to time and became involved in “Uncle-ing” and training though preferring to “do it his way” rather than becoming an active member of the official training scheme.
In 2004 he took on the editorship of the club newsletter - Flying Matters - and grew it to a substantial periodical often running to 20 pages or more. The magazine Volume 11, Issue 2 dated September 2010, can be accessed in Downloads. (You will have to log-in to access), is typical of one of the more comprehensive of his publications and still worth a read. In case you lack the time to read as far as page 26 here is a photograph which appears there. It shows David at rest while enjoying a flight from his favourite location on the far side of the site which avoided staring at the sun but was later banned, much to David’s displeasure, because of the risk of unwittingly overflying the North fence and, even more importantly, club members arriving and departing.
Before retirement he did some very interesting work at Flight Refuelling, notably on drones, and earlier, in 1966, when an NCO in the RAF he was working in the Maintenance Unit at RAF Lineham when he witnessed Wing Commander ‘Taffy’ Holden’s inadvertent flight in Lightning XM135. If you don’t know the full story take a look at www.oldhaltonians.co.uk/post/wing-commander-taffy-holden As it happens, the subject aircraft is now part of the collection at Duxford.
Funeral was at Bournemouth Crematorium on March 13th at 3pm.
